The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

If you’ve ever been turned down for a credit card, auto or student loan — or maybe your application was accepted but you didn’t get the best interest rate — and wanted to see a copy of the actual credit score used in the lender’s decision-making process, you were probably out of luck. But starting July 21 lenders will be required to show you the score.

The new regulation applies to decisions made using credit scores that could be used to underwrite a loan or line of credit. So in addition to the above-mentioned situations, the NY Times says this would include a landlord requiring several months advance rent after reviewing your FICO score, but it would not include utility companies that use their own scoring systems to decide whether or not to require security deposits from customers.

All reports sent to qualifying applicants must include the following information:

range of possible credit scores, major factors that hurt the score, the date the score was created, where you rank nationally, as well as the name of the person or entity that provided the credit score or the credit file that was used to create the score.

Some lenders already send out most, if not all of this information to prospective borrowers. Mortgage lenders are already required to disclose credit score info for every borrower as part of the application process.